Another seven days another edition of your weekly #histSTM links list Whewell’s Gazette bring you the best of the histories of science, technology and medicine garnered from the last seven days throughout the Internet.

There is a tradition to date the beginning of the scientific revolution to 1543 because two classic books were published in that year Copernicus’ De revolutionibus and Vesalius’ De fabrica. The latter was instrumental in bringing the study of anatomy to the fore in medicine in the Renaissance.

The historian of astronomy spent many years conducting a census of the surviving copies of the first two editions of De revolutionibus providing an important research tool for his fellow historians.

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices”. – William James

“I admit that mathematical science is a good thing. But excessive devotion to it is a bad thing.” – Aldous Huxley

“I love the philosophy of science”. – Alfredo Ovalle (@Fredthegrand)

“A hangover is the wrath of grapes.” ― Dorothy Parker

“One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts”. – Erwin Schrödinger h/t Paul Halpern (@phalpern)

Banting and Dog 1923Banting House National Historic Site of CanadaI often stare at an old photograph of Dr. Frederick Banting, the discoverer of insulin, to get ideas. I am inspired by his sheer tenacity. Against all odds, he succeeded in bringing insulin treatment into the world. I am completely in awe of how he had an idea and gave up everything right down to his old Ford to continue his research. He may have been trained as a surgeon with a special interest in orthopedics, but he forever changed the way diabetes is treated.After Dr. Banting finished his residency at the Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto and the hospital failed to give him an appointment on staff, he set up practice in London, Ontario. Unfortunately, during his first month of practice, he only saw one patient. He needed a paying job, so he took a position as an assistant professor of physiology at the University of Western Ontario.

A ward in the Manchester Jewish Hospital, early twentieth century. Photograph taken from the collection of the Manchester Jewish Museum, based in a former Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, the oldest in the city. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/Manchester Jewish Museum/ Christopher Thomond